Analysis on Transverse Bending of Rectangular Plate

Transverse bending analysis of plates is an important investigation in structural engineering. A number of techniques has been used so far for these investigations. However Finite Element Method is by far the most popular one. In this paper a general first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is used to analyze the bending behavior of isotropic plates having central cut-outs. A nine node isoparametric element is used. Plates having different aspect ratio (b/a), boundary conditions and different loads-uniformly distributed load and hydrostatic load are analyzed. Both thin (h/a=0.01) and thick (h/a=0.1) isotropic plates are studied. The deflection and bending moment in non-dimensional form are presented at different locations of the plate. Some of the present solutions are compared with those obtained using ANSYS. Numerical solutions obtained by the present formulation are within 1% of the exact solutions found in literature which not only validates the formulation but also has a clear advantage over ANSYS results (which are generally with 5%-10% of exact solutions). Some new results are provided for uniformly distributed load and hydrostatic load. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.